Muriel Poulin named grand marshal for July 4th parade

Thursday

Jul 4, 2013 at 3:15 AM

By Stacy LivingstonSanford News Correspondent

SANFORD — Dr. Muriel Poulin of Springvale will lead Sanford’s Annual Fourth of July Parade Thursday as Grand Marshal. The parade will kick off at Schuler Street at 10 a.m., and will proceed north on Main Street to Gowen Park.

Poulin said last Friday that she was honored and excited to be chosen Grand Marshal, as well as a little surprised, particularly since she was also Grand Marshal for the Holly Daze parade this past November.

Her naming, though, comes as less of a surprise to those who know her well. At age 88, Poulin has been retired for nearly 24 years, but has simply never slowed down.

Since her return to Springvale in 1989, Poulin has given her all to the process of bettering the community, and the evidence of her involvement is far-reaching.

Poulin began and currently manages the Sanford location of Books Revisited, a shop that raises funds for the HomeHealth Visiting Nurses of Southern Maine. She has also served for nine years on the board for HomeHealth, which provides both home care and hospice care to York and Cumberland counties.

Poulin also serves on the Visioning Committee at the Trafton Center on Elm Street, planning future activities for the center’s seniors, like pottery classes and trips. She speaks fondly of the center and its seniors, whom she joins for bridge on Wednesday nights. “It’s a very active center,” she said, “with a very active group of seniors.”

On top of her work at the Trafton Center, Poulin has also given a great gift to the city’s seniors with her efforts to start the Sanford chapter of the York County Senior College, which offers classes to students aged 50 and older. The College has now been in operation for almost 15 years.

Poulin’s work, though, has improved Sanford-Springvale for its younger generation as well as its older population. She was instrumental in the redevelopment of the Nasson College campus, serving on the boards for its redevelopment, the Nasson Gym council, and the Little Theatre council.

Even more impressively, Poulin was honored as a “Living Legend” by the American Academy of Nursing for her contributions to the field. Poulin’s career in nursing took her to several different countries, as she accepted foreign assignments in countries like Syria, Lebanon, Venezuela, and Costa Rica and worked in the United States as well.

What’s most striking about Poulin, though, is not her titles and the awards that she’s won, but the zeal and energy that she brings to her every undertaking. “If I take things on, I’m committed to them,” Poulin said Friday.

Her coworkers at Books Revisited, Mary and Jackie Penney, regard her as “a very smart lady,” who is energetic and outgoing and “expects a certain amount of pride from people in their work.”

Poulin has taken this kind of pride in her own work since she chose nursing as a career, and retirement has never dulled her commitment to getting things done right.

Although Poulin refers to her return to Springvale as “settling down,” after a lifetime of traveling and rapidly changing work experiences, it is the city’s good fortune that Poulin has never been content to truly “settle down.”